From the book Stainless Steel Illusion and various automobile magazines weknow that a number of DeLoreans were used as press cars around March of1981. The old DMCTalk had some photos of these cars being cleaned up aboutthat time.

I was in Detroit this past weekend and was able to view the archives of ZoraArkus-Duntov (ZAD) as they related to his consulting work for DeLorean MotorCompany. Zora was at the factory to address issues with bump-stop on thepress cars and in his words "was appalled by the condition of the presscars". He spent the rest of his time there before the media arrived makingthe cars presentable.

He identified 82 items on the five cars, and handwritten notes on these carswere in the files, along with his report to John dated March 19, 1981.

Research into the 500 series DeLoreans is "fluid" and changing,based upon new information that is identified, over the years.The information that James has identified is "new" public info,although it has been sitting around in boxes for decades.

Since the initial posting of this information, there are someclarifications that should be made, and these will probably beupdated on the website when (if) Chris N. ever gets any "free"time to make additions, changes and/or any corrections.

As previously stated, VIN...500 is still most likely VIN...501(re-VIN'ed), but it appears that the orginal VIN...500 may beone of the Wooler-Hodec (but not VIN...510) since many of these12xxx cars have similar characteristics as the 500 series cars.

Since VIN...501 has not been "found", it appears VIN...501 mayhave been re-VIN'ed again (once repaired) to a 12xxx series carfor Wooler-Hodec conversion, but this cannot be confirmed yet.Inspections of many of the early underbodies is still on-going.

So a clarification (or correction) can be made to some of theprevious statements, for those who wish to "qoute" PJ Grady UK.

VIN...500 had VIN swapped, so it is Production Line Car 2.

VIN...501 had VIN swapped, so it is Production Line Car 1, putto the side, to be repaired (or re-VIN'ed) at a later date.

VIN...502 (no change), it is Production Line Car 3, and so on,for at least the first half dozen or so production line cars.

It is also true that a number of 500 series cars were built andcompleted, by hand (not on the line) prior to VIN...500, sincea few of these cars were flown to the US prior to the launch ofVIN...500 on January 21, 1981. VIN...520 was one of these cars.